The Dying of the Light: A Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

hound’s teeth or what?’
    ‘Klaus is an attack dog,’ replied Anderson haughtily. ‘His jaws are the result of generations of selective breeding.’
    ‘Pity they forgot to leave room for a brain.’
    ‘It was his own fault, Jim. If Klaus hadn’t got him, he’d probably have been hedgehogged by some passing motorist.’
    ‘All I’m trying to say is you can’t run a place like this by yourself, Bill.’
    ‘Letty’s not just a pretty face, you know.’
    ‘I mean someone human. And preferably with a few relevant qualifications.’
    ‘It all comes down to money,’ Anderson sighed. ‘Speaking of which, what’s the good word in re the Davenport?’
    Rosemary jerked her head away abruptly from the wall. She got down off the bed and crossed to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room, where Dorothy’s meagre stock of personal possessions were displayed. There was a small statue of a lighthouse inscribed ‘Land’s End’, a faded photograph of two solemn children holding hands, a set of miniature spirit bottles in a wooden case, a Chinese fan with a broken gilt clasp and a spray of dried poppies. There was also a brown bottle with a typed label reading The Mixture Mrs D. Davenport To be taken as directed Do not exceed the stated dose. A transparent plastic spoon was attached to the bottle by a rubber band, its bowl lightly stained with a blue smear.
    Taking the bottle in one hand and holding the cardigan under her arm, Rosemary walked quietly to the door. In the cubicle leading to the corridor the voices once more loomed up at her.
    ‘… out of the question,’ Morel was saying. ‘I’ve read the consultant’s report, Bill. The only way she’s going to leave hospital is in a bag.’
    ‘Fine, but when ?’
    ‘That’s hard to say. Could be a few months, could be a year. Someone our age you’d be talking weeks, but the old last longer, funnily enough. The metabolism’s running down, you see, so even a rampant malignancy like this takes a while to run its course.’
    ‘So what if she tells the nurses about our chum here? If this gets in the papers …’
    ‘Don’t fret, Bill. She’ll be out of it on pain control most of the time, plus with the staffing levels these days no one has the time to stand around nattering.’
    ‘All the same, I’d be happier if she stayed here.’
    ‘No can do, Bill. Once the machinery’s been set in motion …’
    Rosemary ran as fast as she dared along the corridor to the landing and clattered downstairs. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she noticed that she was patting the back of her right hand, which held the medicine bottle. That gesture had been the closest her mother, an undemonstrative woman, had ever come to physical intimacy, and then only on very special occasions when she had felt it necessary or desirable to reassure the child – in much the same way that she kept a small bottle of brandy on the top shelf of the cupboard in the bathroom ‘for medicinal purposes only’.
    Rosemary turned briskly away. That was quite enough of that. She wasn’t having mirrors going soft on her. Shiny, hard and shallow was how she wanted them, reflecting her as she was, as she appeared to be, an elderly maiden aunt whose emotions were under perfect control at all times. It was a relief to return to the lounge and find the other guests all in their places: the colonel with his newspaper, the peeress at the piano, the clergyman buried in his book, the lovebirds using the jigsaw as an excuse for their proximity, the invalid widow swathed in her blankets, the Jew on the phone. Only George Channing, the corned beef millionaire, appeared to be missing.
    Rosemary slipped into the chair beside her friend.
    ‘We must talk, Dot!’ she said urgently. ‘Here, put the cardigan on. I’ve been a fool, Dot. No, not that button, there’s one right here at the bottom. We’ve been totally and utterly wrong all along, and I almost didn’t realize the truth until it